Looking at the pine license again
[People replying on -legal. Please CC me as I'm not subscribed to the
list.]
This is the CPYRIGHT file from pine 4.43 my comments are in []. I've read
some of the earlier discussion about the pine license but I think some of
the concerns raised there are no longer relevant. (though there may be
new ones.] I maintain the license as it stands now should qualify a
binary package of pine/pico etc. for inclusion in main or at the very
least non-free.
Pine and Pico are registered trademarks of the University of
Washington. No commercial use of these trademarks may be made without
prior written permission of the University of Washington.
Pine, Pico, and Pilot software and its included text are Copyright
1989-2001 by the University of Washington.
[Ok this seems like boilerplate stuff.]
Use of Pine/Pico/Pilot: You may compile and execute these programs for
any purpose, including commercial, without paying anything to the
University of Washington, provided that the legal notices are
maintained intact and honored.
[Again nothing controversial here]
Local modification of this release is permitted as follows, or by
mutual agreement: In order to reduce confusion and facilitate
debugging, we request that locally modified versions be denoted by
appending the letter "L" to the current version number, and that the
local changes be enumerated in the integral release notes and
associated documentation.
[To meet these requirements it should be sufficient to call a hypothetical
Debian package 4.43L and add the line "See
/usr/share/doc/pine/changelog.Debian.gz for local changes" to pines' README.]
Redistribution of this release is permitted as follows, or by mutual
agreement:
(a) In free-of-charge or at-cost distributions by non-profit concerns;
(b) In free-of-charge distributions by for-profit concerns;
(c) Inclusion in a CD-ROM collection of free-of-charge, shareware, or
non-proprietary software for which a fee may be charged for the
packaged distribution.
[I guess this is the sticking point? But I really don't see how these
points violate the DFSG. The only scenario that comes to mind is if a
commercial vendor had a for-pay FTP site but that's kind of far-fetched.
And even then it could go into non-free. The earlier threads on -legal
mentioned DFSG #8 but this text does not state that further
redistribution is not allowed.]
Redistribution of binary versions is further constrained by license
agreements for incorporated libraries from third parties, e.g. LDAP,
GSSAPI.
[Tell us something we don't know.]
The University of Washington encourages unrestricted distribution of
individual patches to the Pine system. By "patches" we mean
"difference" files that can be applied to the University of Washington
Pine source distribution in order to accomplish bug fixes, minor
enhancements, or adaptation to new operating systems. Submission of
these patches to University of Washington for possible inclusion in
future Pine versions is also encouraged.
[This doesn't say that modifications must be made as patches only. Just
that patches are "encouraged."]
The above permissions are hereby granted, provided that the Pine and
Pico copyright and trademark notices appear in all copies and that
both the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that the name of the University of
Washington not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without specific, prior written
permission. This software is made available "as is", and
THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION
ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE, AND IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON BE LIABLE
FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR STRICT LIABILITY,
ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS
SOFTWARE.
[More boiler plate.]
So what do you think?
--
Jaldhar H. Vyas <jaldhar@debian.org>
It's a girl! See the pictures - http://www.braincells.com/shailaja/
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